Drinking Water Security and Climate Change Adaptation in Canada: Evaluating Forest Management and Disturbance Impacts on Treatability

加拿大的饮用水安全和气候变化适应：评估森林管理和干扰对可处理性的影响

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-04655
• 负责人: Emelko, Monica
• 金额: $ 3.06万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=615217
• 关键词: Drinking; Water; Security; Climate; Change

The drinking water for more than 58% of the largest urban communities in Canada originates in forested watersheds. The health of Canada’s forests and the waters they supply is threatened by numerous pressures, including potentially severe threats from climate change that cause increasingly variable and deteriorated water quality. This can overwhelm treatment processes and push them beyond their design capacity, necessitating potentially cost-prohibitive changes in treatment to ensure provision of safe drinking water. The value of natural storage and filtration of water by global forests has been estimated at $4.1 trillion (US) and so, forested water resources are strategic priorities in Canada and globally. Thus, the delivery of safe drinking water—security—and its relationship to natural and anthropogenic activities in forested watersheds is a critical priority. Forest disturbances (e.g. wildfires, hurricanes) can be potentially catastrophic for drinking water supply and treatment; as a result, there is an increased interest in forest management for source water protection (SWP). While forests are managed for many purposes, they are not currently managed for protection of drinking water supplies. While the impacts of forest disturbance and management on water have been well studied, little if any of that research has specifically focused on impacts to drinking water treatability—those impacts often are not evident from the available science. Our goal is to provide new knowledge regarding the impacts of wildfire and different forest management strategies on water quality and treatability to inform decision making regarding drinking water security and source protection. Specific objectives are: to 1) evaluate the impacts of forest fuel management approaches on the quality and treatability of water supplies, 2) identify deteriorated water quality characteristics that particularly compromise treatment after severe wildfire, and 3) evaluate emerging drinking water treatment technologies’ capacity to treat highly deteriorated water after wildfire. This research will provide new knowledge and train students with skills relevant to the needs of Canadian organizations in the strategic areas of Environmental Science and Technologies. The research outcomes can be directly applied to inform decision making in SWP, integrated resource management, and technology implementation and drinking water safety planning. Trainees will have specific skills related to integrated drinking water and forest management that are lacking in Canada and abroad. New forest management-based SWP strategies may offer climate change adaptation strategies that can mitigate catastrophic threats of wildfire to drinking water security and preclude the need for costly, potentially cost-prohibitive drinking water treatment upgrades necessitated by severe forested source watershed disturbances.

加拿大58%以上的最大城市社区的饮用水来自森林流域。加拿大森林及其供应的沃茨的健康受到许多压力的威胁，包括气候变化可能造成的严重威胁，气候变化导致水质日益变化和恶化。这可能会使处理过程不堪重负，超出其设计能力，从而需要对处理过程进行可能成本高昂的改变，以确保提供安全的饮用水。全球森林的自然储存和过滤水的价值估计为4.1万亿美元，因此，森林水资源是加拿大和全球的战略优先事项。因此，在森林流域提供安全饮用水-安全-及其与自然和人类活动的关系是一个关键的优先事项。森林干扰（如野火、飓风）可能对饮用水供应和处理造成灾难性影响;因此，人们越来越关注森林管理以保护水源。虽然森林的管理有多种目的，但目前森林的管理并不是为了保护饮用水供应。虽然森林干扰和管理对水资源的影响已经得到了很好的研究，但很少有研究专门关注对饮用水可处理性的影响，这些影响通常在现有科学中并不明显。我们的目标是提供有关野火和不同森林管理策略对水质和可处理性的影响的新知识，为有关饮用水安全和水源保护的决策提供信息。具体目标是：（1）评估森林燃料管理方法对供水质量和可处理性的影响，（2）确定严重野火后特别影响处理的恶化水质特征，（3）评估新兴饮用水处理技术处理野火后高度恶化水的能力。这项研究将提供新的知识，并培养学生与加拿大组织在环境科学和技术的战略领域的需求相关的技能。研究成果可以直接应用于SWP，综合资源管理，技术实施和饮用水安全规划的决策。受训者将掌握加拿大和国外缺乏的与综合饮用水和森林管理有关的具体技能。新的基于森林管理的SWP战略可以提供气候变化适应战略，可以减轻野火对饮用水安全的灾难性威胁，并排除需要昂贵的，可能成本高昂的饮用水处理升级所必需的严重森林源流域干扰。